By
T. R. Shaw Jr.
My hometown of Battle Creek is
getting some much appreciated attention lately.
The community has been featured in major business journals, national and
international newspapers, and most recently a series of stories in Crains Michigan Business, and it’s not about
cereal!
However, in nearly every report,
journalists couldn’t resist using the term “Rust Belt” when framing our
region. A term many of us scoff at from
our past.
The recent accolades center on our
community’s entrepreneurial efforts, and the growth of the Fort Custer
Industrial Park, which in thirty years has attracted 70 firms from around the
globe. The Park is adjacent to
Michigan’s third busiest airport with a 10,000 foot runway and lots of room to
grow.
High tech companies supporting the
automobile industry have occupied “The Fort” since 1974, employing more than
21,500 people. Our biggest resident and
employer is Denso Manufacturing, a Japanese owned company making heaters, air
conditioners, and radiators for most of the auto industry and employing more
than 2,100 associates (they don’t call them employees.) Denso recently installed an impressive
robotic line which didn’t replace any laborers.
Battle Creek also landed lithium
component manufacturer Toda USA which is making parts for the next generation
of hybrid electric vehicles. Toda
recently inked a deal with BASF and will expand in the near future. Oh, yes, Kellogg and Post are still here, but
the community appears to have moved well beyond the “Cereal City” moniker.
Our economic development entity,
Battle Creek Unlimited, which manages Fort Custer Industrial Park, formed in
1974 and took advantage of the former military base when it was officially
closed by then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. BCU recently cleared hundreds of acres,
making them “infrastructure-ready” parcels, going well beyond “shovel ready,”
and offering it to developers and corporations.
The interest in this land is overwhelming and will fill quickly; that’s
very good for our region and state! No
Rust Belt mentality here!
Rust Belt is a term coined in the
late 70’s and early 80’s during the worst part of the industrial decline. Rust Belt refers to an economic region of the
United States primarily in the formerly dominant industrial states of Illinois,
Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
It came to symbolize a devastating economic change, primarily with the
downsizing of the steel industry in towns like, Pittsburgh, Allentown and
Youngstown. The ripple of that economic
decline has been felt throughout all the Midwest for thirty or more years,
especially in Michigan where the automobile industry is dominant.
We have many “belts” in our nation,
there is a snow belt, sun belt, corn belt, fruit belt and even a few Bible
belts scattered throughout the nation. Even
our capital is situated within a “beltway.” So the term Rust Belt was geographically
fitting, for the decline of the steel industry and everything related to it during
that era. I question whether that term
is still valid today with all the shifts and expansion in manufacturing and
technology, which have replaced much of our hard industrial might?
In 1984 Scholars, Murray L.
Weidenbaum and Michael J. Athey at Washington University in St. Louis, Center
for the Study of American Business, addressed that topic in a point paper, The Revival of the Rust Belt.
In this study, they questioned if
the term Rust Belt was then an anachronistic term with the coming changes in
the Midwest. They opined,
“The
facts available to answer these questions are undramatic,
not
supportive of any extreme position, and thus uncompetitive in
the
marketplace for public policy viewpoints. The truth of the matter
is
that some of this nation's heavy industry is no longer competitive
and
is in the process of shrinking in size and importance;
steel
and automobile companies have reported the most dramatic
cutbacks.
Yet, on balance, the answer to each of the questions is a
clear
"no."
If
there is a "Rust Belt," it is far more a question of perception
than
reality.”
They went on to discuss how industry
has been replaced by technology and the traditional labor jobs have given way
to better ways and systems of doing things.
Basically, they denied that we truly have a “Rust Belt” under the
current direction the region was moving.
“If
industrial giants of the past such as Andrew Carnegie and Harvey Firestone
were to visit their
old companies, they would be pleasantly
surprised by the
array of high technology now in use: industrial
robots, sophisticated
process control, laser inspection, flexible
manufacturing systems
(FMS), automated material handling,
and CAD/CAM
(computer-aided design along with computer-aided
manufacturing).”
These words were expressed in 1984
and still ring true today. So my
question is, why do we continue to accept and use the term Rust Belt, when so
many great things are happening, especially here in Michigan? Under Governor Jennifer Granholm, we created
“Automation Alley,” in metro Detroit.
Under Governor Rick Snyder, we’ve come a long way in “reinventing” our
state and how we do business. Detroit is
seeing unprecedented investment and growth around technology. It’s the comeback city of the Midwest. The auto industry stands on the brink of huge
new advances with hybrid and electric cars. For the first time in many years, companies
are coming back to Michigan, rather than leaving to do business.
True, we still have a long way to go
economically, but we are far from the malaise of the so called Rust Belt
era. While many journalists and scholars still
employ the term Rust Belt, I’d like to see that phrase used in historical
perspective.
Yes, we may have been the Rust Belt,
but that term really no longer fits the direction we are moving. Too many good things are happening to be
labeled with a term like that from the past.
T. R. Shaw, Jr. is CEO of Shaw
Communication in Battle Creek. He is a
freelance writer and aspiring author.
